Thyme Hill Vineyard is the only one in Central Otago to grow merlot to bottle, although Central Otago Wine Association general manager Jake Tipler said some other growers may have vines they grow to test their viability.
"Merlot is a hotter climate variery that wouldn't typically grow well here but this has been a very hot season,'' he said.
Mrs Diks inherited the variety when she bought the vineyard 10 years ago, as they were planted by former owner John Kelly in 1993, she said.
"I think he just wanted to do something different. In the '90s, it wasn't really known that pinot noir was going to be the big thing for Central Otago.''
Mr Kelly chose well for the Thyme Hill site in Letts Gully. The vineyard's main slope was high, on a north facing slope, so was normally a couple of degrees warmer than in her home on the lower side of the hill, Mrs Diks said.
Being a fairly steep slope, frosts tended to roll off the vines, saving time and labour of frost-fighting also.
Merlot also had greater resistance to disease, She said, its looser clusters meaning botrytis was less likely and the thicker skins than merlot making powdery mildew less likely also.
That steep slope meant that pickers on Friday were carrying full buckets of fruit down the rows to bins at the base of the block, but the microclimate made it a warm day outdoors among the golds and reds of the region's autumn for those who had come to help.
